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Saturday was day 4 of not smoking, and honestly, it was wearing on me. That morning I had spent the morning cleaning my disaster of a house after my “ungrateful children and husband” who had left a sea of laundry, dishes, carpet stains and sticky floors for me to clean. Of course the kids were with their dad and Chris was working, so I had no one to vent my building anger to. By the time Chris got home, I was a little better, I’d tried really hard to let it all go. I bitched a little, but pretty much let it go. Chris suggested we get out of the house, maybe that would help relieve the building stress. Couldn’t agree more. We had a great afternoon, we went to an antiques store, we got Chris some new sandals, had a great late lunch, not a cross word was spoken, not a sideways look given. Then we went to TJ Maxx and all hell broke loose. I’ve been telling Chris for God knows how long that we need new sheets. Now you might be asking, why don’t you just buy sheets yourself? Good question, and I could. But we try really hard to make all household purchases together, or at least with each other’s input. Every other time we’ve gone to get sheets (and we’ve done it no less than 20 times) we always end up leaving empty-handed. He freaks out about the price, I try to explain the value of a high thread count sheet, he doesn’t get it, I think he’s cheap and being difficult, he thinks I’m being a spoiled princess, we usually just leave well enough alone and don’t get into it. I mean really, who fights about sheets?

So we go to TJ Maxx in search of the aforementioned sheets. We can’t seem to agree on the price/thread count/color, but I’m determined. We’re not walking away this time. So after about 45 minutes of me handing Chris sheets to feel, fretting over percale or sateen or Egyptian cotton, he’d had enough. He takes a deep breath and says, does it really matter? They’re fucking sheets. Well, as you can imagine, that went over like a ton of bricks. I said (getting increasingly upset), Of COURSE it matters! I just want something nice to sleep on. Don’t you care? He says, babe, c’mon. They’re sheets. I turned back to the sheets and completely ignored him. He sighed and wandered off. I finally pick some, and I track Chris down, but I’m really irritated. I showed him the sheets, and he was less than impressed. He was all, yeah, they’re fine. They’re sheets. So now I’m pissed. Not a little angry, not a little cranky, I’m fucking PISSED. Was it because he didn’t “care” enough? Was it because I couldn’t find the “perfect” sheets? Or was it just because I hadn’t smoked in 4 days? I put the sheets on the shelf and say, forget it. Take me home. And he’s all, why? What’s wrong? Again, I ignore him, certain that this had nothing to do with smoking, Chris was just a big jackass who obviously didn’t care about what’s important to me (sheets).

We get home and I stomp around for awhile, and then he’s all, what’s your problem? Are you that mad about sheets? I’d like to say that I handled this well, that I was the picture of calm. I so wasn’t. I came unglued. I said just about every hateful thing I could think of, I threw books on the floor, I threw a shoebox at him, I mean I had an all out temper tantrum. He’s just standing there during all this, probably in awe of my dramatic scene, and he says in the most calm voice I’ve ever heard, that’s enough. Well, if I wasn’t really, really mad before that, I was now. I said, Enough? I’ll show you enough! Go to hell! I’m leaving! So I stormed out and slammed the door behind me. By this time it’s starting to occur to me that perhaps I’m overreacting a bit, maybe I should just go back in and apologize for being such a drama queen, and that made me more mad. I hate being wrong. So I figured, I’ll show him. I won’t be sitting outside. I’m really leaving! So I start walking down the street. In my big dramatic exit, I’ve left my wallet and my cell phone on the counter, so it’s not like I can go far, and that makes me even more mad. So to cool off and decide how to tell my family that I’m getting a divorce, I walked…for a fucking mile. I had my flip flops on, which aren’t great walking shoes, and it was getting dark and I was cold in my tank top and capris (also forgot to grab a long sleeve shirt), so I went home. Chris wasn’t there, he was out looking for me (which made me more angry). He eventually came home, and was understandable concerned. I was like, I’m so mad at you, I hate you, and I want a divorce! So we spent the next 45 minutes with me sobbing/yelling about how he really hated me and didn’t care about the sheets that were so important to me, and him trying not to laugh at my utter ridiculousness.

Suffice it to say, we didn’t get a divorce. We did buy a pack of cigarettes though. As it turns out, I wasn’t really mad about the sheets, I was just being an uber bitch, probably because of my not smoking. Go figure.

P.S. Sunday afternoon he took me back to TJ Maxx and we bought sheets.